Angelides outlasts the heat; stuffs kid at air hockey

State Treasurer Phil Angelides isn’t letting the blistering heat slow his campaign for governor, although it’s clear his timing could be a lot better.

The Democratic challenger had an entire summer and fall to schedule his “Voices of California” tour of the Central Valley, but still managed to pick one of the steamiest weeks in memory to take a drive through Bakersfield, Visalia, Fresno, Merced, Atwater, Modesto and Stockton.

It’s one thing to cruise up Highway 99 in a car with the A/C cranked to overdrive, but if you’re running for governor, sometimes you got to get out of the comfort and into the furnace to make a speech and shake some hands.

Although heat warnings were circulating throughout the valley and people were being warned to take every possible precaution to avoid becoming a sun statistic, it didn’t slow Angelides. On Thursday, for example, he was out on the tarmac at the Castle Air Museum with his father, Jerry, to look at a B-29 bomber like the one his dad flew in World War II, despite temperatures that aides insisted were hot enough to quick-fry a ham inside the metal aircraft.

But Angelides won’t let even a record heat wave slow him down. Last Sunday, when the temperature was well into triple digits in Sacramento, Angelides was out on the tennis court for more than an hour playing a match that he admitted “was two-thirds endurance and one-third tennis.”

The treasurer’s competitive urge reached beyond the tennis court or the political arena. Chatting with reporters today in San Francisco, he said that he “had knocked back a 12-year-old” in an air hockey game during his Central Valley adventure.

His campaign manager, Cathy Calfo, wasn’t too happy with him, Angelides admitted, not because he had drilled a 12-year-old, but because “I looked too gleeful doing it.”

“A win’s a win,” said Angelides, who’s been bombarded with bad news in the polls this week. “You look for one when you can get it.”

Angelides was in San Francisco for a news conference slamming Prop. 85, which would require doctors to notify parents or guardians before performing an abortion on a minor.

The parental notification initiative is being pushed by “anti-choice extremists,” Angelides said, and will hurt tens of thousands of young women.

“I’m going to use every ounce of effort between now and election day to raise my voice against Prop. 85,” he added.